“No. It’s … I don’t know what that was about. I swear.” He hesitated.
“But you have your suspicions.”
Matthew sighed and gestured to the bed beside him. “Let me have a look at that hand.”
I bristled at the order, but obeyed him. I was used to injuries healing in the blink of an eye. The sustained throbbing pain I was feeling from my knuckles was unpleasant, but they were likely only bruised. It was truly amazing how fragile humans were, and yet they wanted so desperately to live.
I recalled a man who’d bled out prior to my expulsion from my castle. He’d wanted to live, had wanted me to hear him out. I’d denied him that. I’d needed blood to survive after all, so I had to kill, but it need not have been so casually cruel.
I shook my head. No. There was no need to feel guilty for giving in to my own impulses. It was the natural order of things. Cats played with their food all the time. Nature was brutal.
“Did you see the marks on their robes?” Matthew asked as he grabbed my hand and turned it over to examine my knuckles. He ran his slim fingers over them gently, and I winced. “Sorry.”
I retrieved my hand and cradled it against me to shield it from further probing. “A mark?” I was only half-listening, distracted as I recalled that the man’s blood had been so detestable. I hadlivedfor the taste of blood running down my throat, had savored each tantalizing drop. Why did it donothingfor me now? Was it a fair trade for human food? No. Human food was delightful in its own way, but it wasn’t the same. It didn’t make my body hum with energy and ecstasy.
“Yes, like a moth,” Matthew said.
I stilled. “What did you say?”
He frowned. “I said that the mark was like a moth.”
“A red moth? With its wings extended?”
Matthew’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. Why? You’ve seen it before?”
I swallowed, mouth suddenly dry as my memories reminded me who I was at the core of my being.
I would never tire of the sound of bones breaking. I enjoyed the gentle crack of finger bones, like branches snapping underfoot, quick and sharp. But I loved the decimation of large bones, struck succinctly with a tremendous amount of force, far more. The splintering sound, much like chestnuts cracking in a fireplace, sent a shiver of pleasure down my spine. The accompanying cacophony of groans and shrieks was like a symphony. Pain really was an art form.
The femur was my preferred target. Pulverize such a bone, and the victims were left limping away, or better yet, crawling on their bellies, white-knuckled fingers dragging them along with painstaking slowness across the stone castle floor. Although it was a waste to shatter the leg bone, in all honesty. I savored sucking blood from the marrow, and it was never as satisfying with smaller bones. Whichever way I chose to indulge myself, it never grew dull. The possibilities were significant, after all, what with so many bones in a fragile human body. Two hundred and six bones total, although a few had more. I’ve counted. And there were so very many ways to destroy each and every one of them.
“Stay away from me, monster.”
I quirked an eyebrow at the boy standing in the cold stone room, bare but for a straw-covered mattress and a chamber pot. The bars over the windows were hardly necessary, as the drop from this high up in the castle would surely kill a man, even if he were to land in the water.
“Do I look like a monster?” I demanded, stepping up to the boy, who impressively held his ground. He was a handsome lad, blond, early twenties, with a week’s worth of stubble across his cheeks. He was in fine shape, and I had little doubt that the blood pumping through his veins was divine.
The boy hesitated. “I know of your kind. Moroi. Vampire. You may appear human, but there’s a demon behind that mask. You will not have my soul.”
“Then it’s a good thing it’s not your soul I’m after.” I reached out and ran a hand down the boy’s bare shoulder, and he flinched, ripping his arm from me, but I grabbed his wrist with the speed of a rattlesnake, staying his hand. “Look into my eyes,” I ordered him.
The boy immediately turned his eyes from me, as they always did. But he was human, and his curiosity got the best of him. He tried to only glimpse me from the corner of his eyes, but that was all I needed. My stare didn’t waver as I forced my power into my gaze, like a red-hot coal, fiery and radiating with heat.
The fight seemed to go out of him, as if his strings had been cut. I felt no more resistance in his arm and dropped it, my lips curving into a smile.
“That’s better,” I told him as he faced me straight-on. I pushed a lock of hair back from his face and considered his tender lips, eyes straying down to his neck, where his artery pulsed, as if in anticipation.
“You want my mouth on your skin,” I said.
“I want your mouth on my skin,” he repeated, eyes far away, a vague smile playing across his lips. “Please, sir.”
I leaned closer to him, so that my cheek grazed his. My breath tickled his ear. “You would be mine.”
The boy shuddered. “I would be yours,” he agreed.
I lingered for a moment in that position, anticipating his warm blood in my mouth. He certainly was handsome. Perhaps I could draw this game out, maybe even turn him. I was in want of companionship, and he certainly had fire. Most humans were so meek and submissive. Boring. I could test this boy’s limits, see how far I could push him before he begged me to make him mine. That would be a delicious victory.
“Sir, your bath is ready.”
